The Trump administration has been the center of many controversial issues since the election back in November 2016. The Trump administration has had to grapple with potential election interference issues, health care failures, NFL protests, and now Trump’s Secretary of State may be reaching a tipping point (Collins, Star, Zeleny, & Landers, 2017). According to Collins et al. (2017), a rift has begun to develop between President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who in a Pentagon meeting, referred to Trump as a “moron.” This line of rhetoric has led many to speculate as to Secretary Tillerson’s future in the Trump administration. Moreover, his departure would not represent the first top official to leave the Trump administration. In the middle of 2017, the White House Communication Director Anthony Scaramucci was ousted after making vulgar comments to a reporter while publicly feuding with other top officials in the Trump administration (Merica, Zeleny, & Acosta (2017). Given the larger number of departures in the White House, what does this say about the current state of team development in the White House?
Under the developmental stages for groups, groups are classified as falling into one of four potential categories (Penn State, n.d.). According to Tuckman (1965) the four stages are forming, storming, norming, and performing (as cited by Penn State, n.d.). In the forming stage, the author suggested this stage was the stage were team members would get to know one another but lack trust between each other (Tuckman, 1965; as cited in Penn State, n.d.). In the case of the Trump administration, this would represent the period the administration was initially formed or when a new team member would join the team. The second stage is the storming stage, which is characterized as a period of intragroup conflict due to role conflicts and personality conflicts (Penn State, n.d.). Going back to the onboarding of White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci was in the storming phase since he continued to have clashes with others within the White House shortly after he joined the Trump administration (Merica et al., 2017). The third stage would be the norming stage. Tuckman (1965) indicated the norming state was a period when roles and responsibilities were finalized and individuals begin to perform towards their goals and objectives (as cited in Penn State, n.d.). If the Trump administration were in this phase, the administration would be working in partner with the various cabinet heads, world leaders, and Congress without in signs of in-fighting. The fourth and final stage is the performing stage, which would be marked by significant progress towards team goals (Penn State, n.d.). For the Trump administration, the passing of the administrations legislative agenda would be a hallmark of being in this phase.
However, one challenge the Trump administration is continually facing is ending back at the forming and storming phases. This will continue to make any legislative agenda hard to pursue since team members are not work together correctly. One challenge for President Trump continues to be the communication style of the President himself. Research has shown that messages of stimulation tend to be the most productive for team members since it provides a sense of motivation and energy to the team member(s) (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2005). However, President Trump has not had a good track record of showing support for team members either through Twitter or directly to the media. For example, Trump public flaunted his disapproval for previous White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and would openly question his abilities to generate positive news for the President (Bierman & Bennett, 2017). Moreover, the President tends to use task-irrelevant message, which most likely leave team members confused since task-irrelevant messages not about supporting a message (stimulation message), advocating a strategy (orientation message), or evaluating current efforts through evaluation messaging (Schneider et al., 2005).
As illustrated earlier, President Trump has clearly defined consequences in place for team members who fail to achieve their goals or perform at a level below his level of satisfaction. However, President Trump’s administration lack certain cohesive measures to address the issues in group development (Schneider et al., 2005). Applied social psychology could help facilitate team building between team members to help maximize performance both individually and on a group level. Another way the administration could help resolve conflict would be to follow Sullivan’s (1993) Seven Stages of Communication Training (as cited by Schneider et al., 2005). For this process to be successful, team members would need to listen effectively to one another. Secondly, team members would need to assess themselves and discuss their personality traits to help reduce ambiguity between team members. In the third step, team members need to clearly define the problems team members will encounter towards their goals. Team members will need to disclose responses to a variety of sentences to help facilitate the understand of one’s personality. Team members could then determine what is likely to hinder team efforts in the short term by those challenges sharing them anonymously. The sixth step is to accept the norms of the group and discuss the challenges encountered by group members to help provide insight into situations others may not have faced. Finally, through self-evaluation, team members can have open communication to understand and accept one another as team members.
In conclusion, given the constant turmoil within the administration, it is not surprising how there so many conflicts between persons within the White House. Moreover, based on the departures and arrival of new team members, the administration remains continually locked into the early stages of Tuckman’s (1965) group development stages since it has to start over with each new departure. By not allowing the team to go through the steps (either consciously or unconsciously), team members do not learn enough about one another to begin to have a productive working relationship. Finally, without conducive measures in place to help build teamwork, the administration is likely to not feel unified since administration officials do not really know one another.
References
Bierman, N., & Bennett, B. (2017, July 21). Spicer resigns as an embattled Trump shakes up his press and legal teams. Retrieved October 04, 2017, from http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-spicer-20170721-story.html
Collins, K., Starr, B., Zeleny, J., & Landers, E. (2017, October 04). ‘Moron’ insult ramps up Tillerson, Trump tension. Retrieved October 04, 2017, from http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/04/politics/tillerson-trump-moron/index.html
Merica, D., Zeleny, J., & Acosta, J. (2017, July 31). Scaramucci out as WH communications director. Retrieved October 04, 2017, from http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/politics/anthony-scaramucci/index.html
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2005). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.